2011 - A year of belt-tightening!

sickbean

Hi all, thought it was about time I started participating around here.

Lots of life-changing events in the last two years (marriage and a baby being the main ones), have really made me sit down and sort out our finances.

As they say, necessity is the mother of all invention, and with my wife now off work to look after our new arrival full time, my salary has to cover everything for the first time!

I've used the excellent Budget Brain to do a SOA, if people could have a look to see how things stand and perhaps make a few suggestions that would be great.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,891.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 193.59
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 //2 x pay as you go
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.37
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.44 //Internet & phone both with
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.72 same provider, cheapest
static IP I could find

Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00 //£101 Dual fuel
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.37
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.50
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.95 //for a prepay card (credit builder)
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.33 //Currently sorting out
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520.00
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.62
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.89 //Got through MSE - cheapest
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300.00 //will revise after 1mth
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Medicine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.60 //Get from site rec. by MSE

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67 //£20 per week (1 car)
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.60 //Cheapest car park I can find
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.92
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.64 //expensive but tied in
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.57
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170.00 //17 months at 0%
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.91 //Ends in July
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130.30 //Ends in Aug

Savings & Investments

Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.98 //Get from MSE site rec.
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 //cancel when out of contract.

Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00 //cheapest avail.
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.50 //£15 ever 2mths for me & wf
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Education & Courses

University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One Offs

Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.32 //Guitar Techniques subscription - my only current luxury!
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,084.59


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001.20





As you can see, there are a fair few sections with no spending - what I plan to doing is once all the essentials are paid for keep all the receipts and work out what we're spending per month on everything, then feeding this back into the budget for next month.

With regards to debt payments, we've got £7500 on a Barclaycard (new 0% for 17 months, this was used for wedding/honeymoon/getting house ready for baby, so at least we know where it went!)

We've also got a car loan which will be fully paid by August this year, and a furniture HP (0%) which will be fully paid by July.

Really really hoping to be debt free in the next 2 years (other than mortgage) as it scares me how expensive things are going to be for the little'un in the future.

Tink_04

Hi i didnt want to ready and run just wanted to say im in the same position with and after going back to work and realising how expensive children actually are were looking at our money too as we have some debt to clear as well - some one will come along and look at the SOA for you and make some great suggestions for you!!! good luck!!!

sickbean

Thanks Tink, good luck to you too.

I've added a few annotations to some of the debts where I can. There really isn't much wriggle room at the moment - good job we both quit alcohol this year otherwise it would be a big minus number at the end!

foxgloves

I've had a look through & the things that jumped out were £300 for groceries/household. Possibility for reductions there with monthly meal planning/batch cooking and cooking from scratch as much as possible. We can do it on £180 (though will spend more, say £250 maybe 3 or 4 times a year if we are going to Lidl for a big stock-up of store cupboard) & eat well but both of us love cooking, which helps. Is £40 for 2 mobiles or 1? Either way, there are monthly contracts available for £15 (only a tenner off, but £120 saved over the year). Could you find cheaper home insurance? We were paying slighly more than you, but recently swapped to the Co-op and monthly payments dropped to around £25. Also, can you cut back on energy useage. I don't mean sit in the freezing cold, but stop any wastage such as boiling full kettle for one cup of tea, leaving stuff on standby, heating rooms you don't use, leaving lights on, etc. It sounds trivial, but a couple of years ago, our energy payments were £70 electricity & £82 gas and through being much less wasteful, we now pay £29 electricity & £37 gas. See if your supplier gives away those free energy use monitors.....nothing concentrates the money-saving bit of the brain like seeing those figures whizzing up when you switch stuff on! I know these are only basic suggestions, but essentially, you need to free up every little bit of spare money possible to throw into clearing the debts so every little bit really does count. Is there anything you can put on ebay so you can get off to a good start with bringing the debt figure down? Also, it would be well worth you keeping a spending diary in which you write down EVERYTHING you spend in a month. Boring, I know, but it allows you to see how 3 or 4 little insignificant 'fritters' of money can add up to £20 in an instant. Good luck with it all, anyway.

sickbean

Thanks Foxgloves, all good advice!

With regards to the £300 food/household - I'm slightly ashamed to say I had no idea what to put in this box so put a high estimate. I've been keeping all the receipts and have spent £55 so far since the 25th (which includes £20 of baby formula - baby is 3 months old with severe reflux so this is a necessity). Based on that I'd expect the figure to be much closer to £200. I love cooking too, and never ever throw food away, it's all good for something!

Home insurance is currently a hot topic, last year we renewed with Kwik-Fit and saved a fortune, however this year we got the renewal letter through and it had more than doubled. Unfortunately letter came 2 weeks after the renewal date, so it was too late, (stupid royal mail). I'm currently arguing the toss with Kwik-Fit over this, but they haven't budged so far.

Electricity is a bit of a mystery to be honest, we got a free meter and it rarely reads over 4p per hour, yet the bills seem much higher. We always give accurate meter readings too.

Tixy

Generally it looks pretty good, you are still showing a small surplus and 2 big repayments finish in summer. Although it also depends on what you owe on your overdraft and credit card I guess.

I see you've already answered the main points I would have said. Aside from those landline, internet and satellite at £73, can you look at combining 2 or all 3 for a cheaper deal (or reduce your TV package etc). Your car maintenance looks a little low for a year - are you including the cost of servicing, new tyres, MOT (if required) etc?
You probably need to budget a bit for childrens clothes at least, and for presents at christmas & birthday and perhaps for haircuts etc.

sickbean

Thanks again for the suggestions.

To do list for next month -

1. Carry on battling with home contents insurers

2. Cancel Sky (will have to buy a freeview box as TV doesn't have a decoder built in)

3. Haircuts, add £5 per 2 months for me and £10 per 2 months for wife (cheap as a friend is a mobile hairdresser).

4. Car servicing - probably only need to add the cost of tires in here, luckily we have a fairly new car (30000 miles) so touch wood it shouldn't give us any trouble for another few years at least!

What are other people budgeting for tyres per year? Our annual mileage is less than 8k as I cycle to work quite a lot.

5. Feedback values from receipts back into budget for next month.

With regards to children's clothes - we bought enough to last us until 1 year off ebay (she is 3 months at the moment) whilst my wife was still working, so we can ignore that column for now.

Broadband and lineline is already with the same provider - I do need a decent speed connection and static IP for work though, which limits my options on that one.

Tixy - we owe £7.5k on the CC (at 0%) and £2500 on wifes overdraft. I don't have an overdraft thankfully. The overdraft is with Halifax who charge £1 per day. This is really annoying me and I plan to tackle this debt next after the car and HP finish.

Tixy

You could consider threating to leave sky and they often will give a good deal to retain you - like the basic package for half price for 6months or so - might be worth a haggle with them before you ditch altogether. If you do cancel can you not keep the box and use on the free channels (I'm not really sure how it works but think a friend did this).

With the house insurance - have you got quotes from elsewhere? - even if you cannot the current one voided might be worth looking at the cancellation cost of the current one and still might be an overall saving. Although obviously better still if they back down considering that you didn't get the renewal in time.

Good action list.

madkoi

Your budget doesnt look too disimilar to mine! I too budget about £300 for shopping each month, food is so expensive now & thats just the basics! I have a 15mth old boy, so I know what its like juggling money with a little one. But since coming on here, its amazing how much you can save if you plan ahead, make meals from scratch & double up quantitys & freeze for another day.
Have a look on the Old Style MoneySaving forum, theres lots of ideas flying around.
Virgin Media usually offer a cheaper deal than Sky & a BT line.
Like others have said, you have some commitments coming to an end, so maybe the extra cash can go towards something else!
Good Luck! :j

[Deleted User]

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax. . . . . . . . 1,891.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . 193.59

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 //2 x pay as you go (would SIM only deals or other networks offer you a better deal? I get free any network anytime minutes and unlinited texts SIM only for £10/month - might be worth a look)
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.37
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.44 (would internet and home phone be cheaper combined in a package - check SKY, Virgin and talk-talk, not sure if there are others to compare with)
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.72 (as above)
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00 //£101 Dual fuel (check comparison sites to see if this is the best tariff for your area - online tariffs are often cheaper - if switching is cheaper check cash back sites like Quidco, Onepoll, Topcashback)
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00 (as above)
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.37
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.50 (are you paying this over 10 months, can you switch to 12 months, or overpay on one of your debts with this during the 2 months Ctax free)
Overdraft Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.00 (How much is your O/D?, can you switch to 0% card?)
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.95 (can you down grade your account? £31+ £4.95 for a bank account is quite expensive)
Home Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.33 (At renewal, check comparison sites)
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520.00
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.62
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.89(check comparison sites)
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . 300.00 //will revise after 1mth (try switching some branded goods for own brand, batch cook and freeze, meal plan, shop with a list and stick to it, use cheaper supermarkets (lidl/aldi) check old style board for cheap and healthy meal recepies etc)
Pet Medicine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.60 (check if this would be cheaper to buy online)

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67 //£20 per week (1 car)
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.60 (any way to reduce?)
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.92
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.64 //expensive but tied in (check comarison sites at renewal)
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.57

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . 170.00 //17 months at 0%
Hire Purchase Repayments . . . . . . . . . 112.91 //Ends in July
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . 130.30 //Ends in Aug

(Not too long to go until August and you will feel like you have a £300 pay rise!!)

Family

Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.98 (check comparison sites)

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 (either check if cheaper in package with home phone and internet, drop to lower package, or cancel and go freeview)

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00 (is this for contact lenses - see if you can get them cheaper online)

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.32 (Newspapers - read the news online?)

Total monthly income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,084.59

Total monthly expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,993.70



As you can see, there are a fair few sections with no spending - what I plan to doing is once all the essentials are paid for keep all the receipts and work out what we're spending per month on everything, then feeding this back into the budget for next month.

With regards to debt payments, we've got £7500 on a Barclaycard (new 0% for 17 months, this was used for wedding/honeymoon/getting house ready for baby, so at least we know where it went!)

We've also got a car loan which will be fully paid by August this year, and a furniture HP (0%) which will be fully paid by July.

Really really hoping to be debt free in the next 2 years (other than mortgage) as it scares me how expensive things are going to be for the little'un in the future.[/QUOTE]

Hi, I've made some suggestions above on where cutbacks could be made. Once you have included all your other spends see where you are then, and then make cut backs accordingly. Without these other spends included you have a surplus at the end of the month, but you will need to see if that's the case when all spending is included.

HTH,

Domino9

sickbean

Thanks again for the suggestions - it's probably worth mentioning that I did a full sweep of all contracts/insurances etc last month before doing this SOA, so I'm either on the cheapest deal, or tied in for now.

Before I did that we would have been losing money every month once my wife left work, so that's something at least. The books do balance.

Looking forwards to July when the HP ends - going to pay the extra off our credit card.

Have also had some success with the home contents - found a company who will do it for £26 rather than £43. There is a £40 cancellation fee but that's nothing compared to the saving over a year of £204. I've some stuff on ebay so once that's sold tomorrow I'll use that cash to cancel the insurance policy.

Baby steps!